


Good Morning

by starshine (darkwood)



Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/M, Heraht Adaar - Freeform, Hurt/Comfort
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-10
Updated: 2016-06-10
Packaged: 2018-07-14 04:12:57
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 904
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7153037
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/darkwood/pseuds/starshine
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>hoarse “good morning”s whispered in the soft dawn light, hands clumsily finding each other through the haze of sleep </p>
<p>Tumblr prompt.</p>
<p>Fluffiness. By the end.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Good Morning

They do not tumble together into the command tent every time they are in the field together. By the time they do, none of the companions bat a lash. 

It’s been several different campaigns with the Inquisitor and the Commander pretending they do not sleep together when they are at Skyhold, despite the fact that they feed each other at meals and gravitate towards one another even when wearing full armor. There are any number of reasons - the men, the nobles, their own privacy - but this campaign is different. The Inquisitor seems hollowed out, the closer they get to the sight of the campaign, and snappish the longer it goes on. None of her companions, none of her friends, have been able to do a thing for her. There’s little anyone can do when a seven-foot sword wielder shut down a conversation. 

But a lover isn’t just a companion, isn’t just a friend. 

It’s barely dark and the dinner bowls are tucked away already, but it stays light so much longer this far North. The Inquisitor has drifted away from the fire, from the stories, from the ginger plucking of the lute by the tents. (Varric really isn’t musical, as he has professed, and the attempt at making him a target had only drawn out Dorian and Cassandra.) 

Cullen follows her tall figure in the darkness, first with his eyes and then with his person. 

“I do not wish to talk about it,” she says before he can speak. 

He starts to ask how she knew it was him, but her ear flicks in his direction in answer. 

Of course, he thinks, Qunari ears. 

"Alright," he relents, somewhat pleased he does not have to fumble through asking about something she has never been open about. He knows enough, from the questions she asks about his family, his siblings, that she did not have that sort of family. He knows enough, from meeting Tully and Arend, the kind of family that she did have. 

He moves closer, reaching out to take her elbows in his hands, thick leather gloves meeting the scaled metal of her arm bracers. 

She tenses. 

"We don't have to talk about it, but you have to come to bed." 

Her chin jerks, involuntarily, pulling away, but Cullen holds her arms, pulls the two of them together. The warmth he knows of her is missing, lost to the cold and the armor, but she comes back against him willingly. 

"I'm tired," she admits. 

"All the more reason you should come to bed." 

"I'm not in the mood to curl up in an empty cot," she says, shaking her head. "I don't want-" 

"Who said anything about empty?" 

She stiffens in surprise, turning to look back at him, and Cullen offers a gentle smile as their eyes meet. "But-" 

"Everyone knows anyway," Cullen says, dismissively, "they have done for ages. Probably something to do with the two of us giggling our way up to your tower at the celebration party." 

"Not everyone," she says softly, looking away into the night. 

And there is his way in. He knows it because he can hear the same doubt in her lowered voice as he has heard in his own. He knows it because it hurts to hear that tone from her. 

It is a world away from when he first heard it from her, and he no longer lacks the proper response. 

"Then maybe it's time everyone knew," he replies gently, putting his cheek against the chilled armor on her shoulder and letting his arms find their way around the middle of her. 

They are both silent, for a moment, breath making little clouds in the darkening night. Then she moves, turns, and Cullen is wrapped up in her embrace as much as she is in his. 

It is he who tugs her back towards the tents, who leads the way and pulls the flap aside for her to go in before him. It is he who ties the flaps together, shutting out the whole world and the Inquisition beyond the heavy fabric of it. 

Together they take off armor, piece by piece, until they are in leathers and wool and bundle themselves together beneath the heavy bearskin that adorns her cot.  
He falls asleep as he is accustomed, after so much time, with his cheek against her chest and her heartbeat a steady tempo in his ear. 

In truth he has slept as poorly as she, absent of her arms. 

Greedy for rest as they are for each other, they sleep late. The flaps of the tent are ablaze with morning light when they wake, still wound together. 

"Good morning," he whispers, voice rough with sleep. Sometime in the night his hands found their way into the loose shirt she sleeps in. He strokes her back, letting his fingers trace the patterns of scars on her. She heals cleanly, but still some remain, and he can pick the teeth marks of Corypheus's dragon out in a fearful shape across her torso. 

Her eyes stay closed as her lips find his in a gentle kiss, and her hands mark the wool-clothed expanse of his back and side, as though assuring herself he is real before she opens them. 

"Good morning," she whispers back, her old familiar smile tugging at her lips. 

There is no more beautiful sight, Cullen thinks, than her eyes in the morning.

 

**Author's Note:**

> This got a little longer than I intended. Also it was totally about the socks and not the good morning, until it was.


End file.
